Comparative Assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Emission and Land Use Capacity of Plastics Waste in Thailand

Abstract

Currently, the annual Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generation in Thailand was 14 million t. About 15.88% of total MSW was accounted as 2.22 million t of plastics waste which need to be disposed each year. The MSW in Thailand has been steadily increasing which bring a crisis in many area of country because of lack of potential site for the sanitary landfill. The first objective of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study was to assess and evaluate the global warming potential (GWP) and land use capacity from cradle to grave of bio-based, PLA derived from sugarcane (PLA') and PLA derived from corn (PLA''), with petroleum-based, PS derived from natural gas and crude oil, plastics. Two waste management scenarios are considered, namely the combination of 75% sanitary landfill cooperation with 25% composting (scenario 1), the combination of 50% sanitary landfill cooperation with 50% composting (scenario 2). It was found that the PS with scenario 1 showed the highest GWP impact and land use capacity of 1.194 × 104 t CO2 equivalent per year and 2.073 × 106 m3 per year. PLA' and PLA'' in scenario 2 showed the lowest GWP impact and land use capacity. The second objective was to assess the GWP impact and land use capacity of all studied boxes from cradle to grave based on 10% of total plastics waste or 2.22× 105 t per year and disposal in scenario 2. It was found that total GWP impact and land use capacity of PLA-based boxes in scenario 2 were lower than those of PS in scenario 1 of 4.63 % and 10% respectively. Copyright © 2022, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.